That’s entertainment
If you spend your evenings in front of the TV engaged in excessive hand wringing over the current state of ‘popular entertainment’, then I’d like to cheerfully and annoyingly remind you that it was ever thus.
Yesterday I was at the British Library enjoying the 19th century’s version of mass novelty entertainment thanks to Professor Heard’s Peerless Magic Lantern Show. There, in the dowdy atmosphere-less BL conference centre, Professor Heard enthralled us with some of the most popular (and beautifully hand-painted) magic lantern slides of the day:
- skulls and phantoms blinking their eyes and grinning menacingly
- a tree taking revenge on its role as firewood by coming alive and attacking a human with an axe
- a monkey throwing a live cat onto a fire
- a boy starving to death whilst his sister dies of cold
- a series of drunks falling to their death
- some particularly gruesome, blood spurting battle scenes
- a man lying in bed, amusingly eating a succession of rats
Of course, there were other lantern slides and shows – fables, bible stories, morality plays, nice scenery from around the world and the like – but who wants to see those when you can watch someone eating vermin…
Tags: the past is another country, what I did on the weekend
December 1st, 2009 at 12:31 am
bloody hell… didn’t number 7 actually happen on ‘I’m a Celeb’ last week??!! no REALLY?!!! I didn’t see it (honest guv!) but it was the talk of the water cooler the next day. If only they’d inject numbers 1- 6 too, then I could be tempted to tune in!
Nice to get a bit of culture isn’t it?? a nice reminder that not quite everywhere has dumbed down.
P
December 1st, 2009 at 8:35 am
Cocktails, did you subscribe to the weekly editions of ‘The Woman in White’?’ A real labour of love by the Wilkie Collins Society. Every Monday you get an extract by email, reproduced just as it was in 1859. Even if you’ve read it before, it’s a great way to enjoy it.
You can’t beat a bit of Victorian gothica.
December 1st, 2009 at 11:31 am
A monkey throwing a cat on a fire? I’m having nightmares already. How gruesome.
December 1st, 2009 at 12:15 pm
Public hangings were almost a spectator sport back then – so I can see why the gory stories were popular.
I saw a pic of some silly business from ‘I’m A Celeb’ over someone’s shoulder on the train today – and it already looks crazily dated and a blip of bizarreness, that will be looked back on as ‘what were we doing viewing’
December 1st, 2009 at 1:26 pm
Although I seem to keep alluding to it, I don’t actually watch ‘I’m a Celeb’ either – not any more anyway. It wouldn’t suprise me if people did eat rats on it. I assume though, that they don’t throw cats onto fires. yet.
I don’t know ‘the woman in white’ ISBW (it’s a musical, isn’t it?!) but I’m off to check it out now. Just can’t get enough of those crazy Victorians.
December 1st, 2009 at 7:25 pm
Sounds like a good night out.
Have you read Matthew Sweet’s ‘Inventing The Victorians’? His whole theme is that the bad press that the Victorians get for being uptight and staid misrepresents a popular culture that was really quite keen on the lurid and spectacular. So magic lanterns figure, and so do penny dreadfuls, and so do the amazing stunts of tightrope walkers like Blondin.
And I never knew that it was common for Victorian labourers to stop off at the pharmacy on the way to the pub for a twist of opium to drop in their pint! Absolutely legal and above board. What everyone was really panicking about was the ruinous effects of green tea on the nervous system…
So…pint of bitter, twist of opium, magic lantern show of grimacing skulls and murderous monkeys. Chuck in a couple of polkas on the pianola and you’ve pretty much got a Victorian rave, as far as I can see. Can you perchance feel it, madam? LAAAAAUUUUU-DAN-UM!!
December 1st, 2009 at 7:29 pm
P.S. Couldn’t figure out how to post on Mondo’s blog so I’m waving over the fences to say thanks to him and Piley for enlivening my weekend ironing marathon with that ’size’ podcast. Perfect fit. Snug around the ears. had it large as I pressed my smalls.
December 2nd, 2009 at 3:58 pm
It is interesting to see what goes for entertainment in each era. I told somebody the other day that either entertainment of today just has gotten so sorry or I’m getting old. I just can’t get into a lot of the crap that airs on tv these days.
December 2nd, 2009 at 9:29 pm
Spud, the Victorians WERE uptight and staid – well some of them anyway. The half that weren’t boozing and drugging away were frantically campaigning against them. The temperance movement was massive!
One of my favourites is the late Victorian panic about young women going into the West End and getting loaded on coke before going out dancing. Nothing changes, does it? Must take a look at that book though – sounds good.
And it’s very easy to comment on Mondo or Piley’s blog – just click on the comments button at the bottom of the post!
Keith, there is some good current stuff around, but you’re right there is an awful lot of dross. And personally I find dross from other time periods way more interesting!
December 3rd, 2009 at 4:38 pm
Makes me wonder whether we shouldn’t just see the whole thing as one long cultural war, rudery vs prudery, with advances and retreats on both sides? Would the Victorian mob think we were repressive killjoys for bannning the wholesome outdoor family entertainment of the public execution? In a hundred years time other writers might be fascinated that the permissive 60s was actually the decade in which Mary Whitehouse rose to prominence.
(V.sorry about techno-gaucherie. Got as far as ‘post comments’ on Mondo then got flummoxed cos I only had an e-mail account.)
December 3rd, 2009 at 11:10 pm
The last time I watched ‘I’m a Celebrity’ it was maybe three seasons ago but had to stop due to sqeuamishness at horrific jungle scenes that should surely have come with an X rating… such as Tony Blackburn attempting to chat up Christine Hamilton over a log-fire (I think they were the last two left and Blackburn won the public vote, by the simple expedient, as far as I could see, of maintaining a constant level of insipidity that allowed him to slip under the radar)….
December 6th, 2009 at 3:15 pm
Hey there. How are you today? Thanks for your recent comment on my blog. I did have a great birthday. I hope you’ve been enjoying the weekend. Take care. Have a great week ahead. Cheers!